Basilisks
by Anders1
Summary: A research report on basilisks.


**Resistance of and how to kill Basilisks**

Basilisks are almost impervious to spells. Their eyes when fully opened are somewhat vulnerable to spells, but it is very hard to use that weakness because if you see fully opened basilisk eyes enough to cast a spell on them you are either dead or petrified, depending if your line of sight are direct or not. When the basilisk has their inner (transparent) eyelids closed they can still see but their gaze is not lethal, this is how they control who they kill. The inner eyelid is almost as spell resistant as the basilisk skin; the outer eyelid is as much as.

In addition to spell resistance, the basilisk's skin can take huge amounts of physical force without damage, even high powered muggle guns and cannons have trouble to make more than a small dent that is healed again within seconds. The physical protection of the eyes is about the same as for magic.

The only 'accessible' weak point of a basilisk is the roof of its mouth. The rest of the mouth of the basilisk is about as hardy as the outer skin is. The biggest problem of reaching that weak point is that there is never a clear line from outside the mouth, you have to be fully or partially inside the mouth and that is basically impossible without being bitten, and after being bitten you have about ten seconds to a minute to live depending on how much poison you get in you and how physically strong you are. (Strength in magic does not help; a muggle athlete lasted longer with the exact same amount of poison as a very strong wizard. A muscular wizard we tried lasted longer than a weak muggle.)

So, to kill a basilisk send a person you don't care too much about, have him hide under the bait of some large animal and when the basilisk bites down, have him reach into the basilisk's mouth and stab it in the top of it's mouth into the brain with a well enchanted blade, if you are lucky, the sword will penetrate into the basilisk's brain and it'll die. If it does not succeed then the worst thing that could happen is that you have to get another big animal for bait (One person in the team demanded that we specifically include the fact that the person with the sword will die from basilisk poison, I have no idea why though, as people for that purpose are the easiest thing to get...).

According to rumours, the tears of a phoenix could be strong enough to cure the poison of a basilisk, but we would not bet on that fact, the tears we obtained only prolonged the suffering of the poisoned a couple of minutes. It is said that the tears are most potent when they are being cried over the wound itself and the phoenix respects the recipient, but we had no way of trying that.

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**Picture of Basilisk gaze**

There are legends about the gaze of the basilisk that says that if you can capture it on picture, anyone seeing the picture will die or be petrified. This is the result of the studies about that.

Both muggle and magical cameras were used in the tries, even what the muggles call digital cameras.

With regular cameras the film seem to melt from a combination of heat and acid, the person looking through the camera while taking the picture are petrified.

Digital cameras behave slightly different, if a person looks at a digital display of the basilisk eyes they sometimes die and sometimes are petrified, seems to depend on the quality of the picture. The storage used for the digital picture are affected by heat and acid, the digital screen on the camera are affected the same after a few seconds of exposure to the gaze. When it was tried to record the basilisk with one camera, then the digital screen with a second camera the effects on the person looking at the second camera's digital screen was effected the same as the first. Same result when using any number of cameras, and even with using a non digital camera as last one.

According to the studies, the only creatures immune to the gaze of a basilisk is:  
1: Phoenix, it was completely unaffected but it did not do anything to the basilisk either.  
2: Unicorn, it is not killed by the gaze, though it does fall into a daze. (The basilisk would not attack the unicorn no matter how we tried to provoke it.)  
3: Dragons, we tried several different species and the results were more or less the same, they bowed down in submission and then tried it's best to kill our research team. (A Parseltongue in our team claimed that the basilisk gave orders to the dragon to kill us.)  
: (On a side note, we made a try with a blind dragon sent towards the basilisk, it did not bow down and did not follow the orders the basilisk gave, instead it did it's best to attack the basilisk. (Did succeed very well, the dragon died from the poison of the basilisk within minutes.) We think that the basilisk somehow hypnotizes the dragons.)

So far there have been no successful recordings/pictures of the basilisk's full gaze.

No basilisks were harmed during the research for this report. (The same can't be said about wizards/muggles, about a dozen of each was killed and a hundred petrified. Nor can it be said about all the animals, magical and not as well as the sentient magical creatures that were not immune.)

If someone has any other ideas of how to capture the image of the basilisk gaze, feel free to contact us and we will let you try it on our captured basilisk under controlled environment.

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Basilisk skin armour

Basilisk skin absorbs magic naturally from both within and out, so armour made from it slowly drains the wearer of magic. The wearer will feel magically weaker and have a noticeable decrease in spell power.

If the skin happens somehow to be damaged while it is being worn (or if it is still on a living basilisk) it repairs itself by taking in a bit extra magic. That in itself causes it to become even more resistant to magic.

Most spells cast on the wearer are absorbed right away. Any 'permanent' magic in the person's clothes are drained away slowly over a week or two depending on the strength of the enchantments. If, for example, someone transfigures the person's clothes they'll revert within an hour. Spells like 'Incarcerous' that binds the wearer in magically created physical bindings dissipate swiftly.

If worn for extended periods of time the basilisk skin becomes almost like an extension of the witch/wizard that it absorbs the magic from and can grow together with him/her. If the wearer does not take it off for years the skin can actually incorporate into the wearer's skin.

It is almost impossible to cut the skin with spells, so to cut out the pieces you need a razor sharp very well enchanted blade, you are recommended not to use relics, as the skin absorbs the magic from the blade cutting in it (quickly rendering the blade magic less), use something you can reapply the magic to yourself. The fitting together should be done with thread made from the skin as well. For needle it is best to use platinum (must not be something transfigured into platinum for this, the transfiguration would be amongst the first to revert) as it retains magic enchantments well for the small size. Enchant it for sharpness, endurance and piercing capabilities. The enchantments need most likely to be reapplied every couple of stitches.

Do not use the shed skin of a basilisk, when a basilisk sheds its skin the sheddings are drained of all its magical properties that makes it such good armour. The shed skin can still be used in potions though for its inhibiting effects.

WARNING: If the suit of basilisk skin is not made in a very certain way it can easily happen that the skin repairs itself were you close it making it impossible to remove. At any place that you do not want it to grow together you will have to put a strip of shed skin in-between.

There are rumours that a person who wore the basilisk skin suit for over a decade took on some traits of the creature, like poisonous fangs, petrifying stare and the ability to speak Parseltongue.


End file.
